"I ain't afraid of no heart doctor..." I've spread it on bread like butter. A savory flavor, but quite delicious.

I use bacon fat in waffles - but those are often served with bacon. Again you get an interesting depth of savoriness to the waffle. I imagine that chicken fat would do the same. I don't use the bacon fat in my sourdough waffle recipe because it has tons of butter and replacing it all with bacon fat would overwhelm the thing - but replacing some butter with chicken fat couldn't hurt. Come to think of it - people serve chicken with waffles, too.

As long as you don't mind the mild chicken taste - I would assume that it would work well in bread. Again, I use leaf lard in some breads and although you can taste a mild porkiness, it is not offensive (depending, of course on the bread in question)

It adds a great,mildly savory flavor to your baked goods. If you've infused it with herbs (while cooking the chicken or stock) it can add herb deliciousness to dinner rolls. I like to spread it on bread instead of butter,also. It often adds a great golden color.

The easiest way to "clean" any fat that might have bits and pieces in it is to put it into a pan with a lot of water,bring the water to a boil to melt the fat and then let the bits and pieces settle to the bottom of the pot. Cool it down so it solidifies and scoop off. Voila-clean fat. Great for any use-baking,cooking,soap making. It may still have an herbal flavor/smell if strong herbs were used .

required for chopped liver and pates. I use it sparingly, in conjunction with VOO and grape seed oil, to caramelize onions and roasted veg. It is also great for roux in gravys, especially with cognac or brandy. Never used it in bread but I might :-)

(I have to admit, though, that the chicken sausage trend has gotten a bit ahead of itself. When you go to Costco and find 20 types of chicken sausage and one type of beef/pork, you know something's wrong with the universe.)

General Mills (Your Share. How to prepare appetizing, healthful meals with foods available today) in the section on shortening indicates "For Baking IN CAKES: ... Lard, or even bacon or poultry fat, may be used in the same amounts (cup for cup). Be sure they are fresh and clear, and increase salt for unsalted fats."

"The pronounced flavor of bacon and poultry fat is less noticeable in chocolate and spice bakings. If used in light cakes, lemon flavoring helps counteract it."

"Poultry fat gives tender cakes, but they may not be quite as high due to a variation in the fat."

There is also a reminder "To help your country, save every bit of fat that comes into your kitchen!" and to "Be patriotic, return any leftover fats to your butcher for war use!"

I had a very dear friend, Florence, who was born in 1914, and she had been a wife and mother from about 1934 forward, which included the Great Depression and World War II, during which real butter was rare anywhere other than on a very self-sufficient family farm and then rationed during the War. She told me that she had used chicken fat and that it made the best cakes she had ever eaten. Unfortunately, my friend died in 2009 without ever having made me a cake of any description, so I cannot vouch for her endorsement. However, because I was intrigued by the idea, I put it on my bucket list, and began rendering chicken fat April 1st, 2013. The first batch was a bit of a disappointment, in that I bought the largest chicken carcass I could find, 6 1/2 lbs, with an FDA label claiming that a four ounce servinging (presumably not including a bone) contained 20 - 25% fat. By bedtime last night, it appeared that I would net less than 8 ounces of real fat. Sensing this outcome earlier, I had called the local grocery store manager, who suggested buying a bunch of chicken backs for high fat and low cost when "the truck comes in" next Saturday. (She explained that all of Publix's chicken is pre-packaged, so it is not possible to simply buy cast off skin and fat that has been trimmed for the sake of people who don't want to be reminded that the tasty morsels they are wolfing down were once part of Chicken Little and Henny Penny.) Anyway, if the Lord tarries, as an old country preacher was wont to say, I hope to produce a chicken pound cake on Sunday or Monday, and will report the results.

I'm interested to hear how it comes out and if it tastes of chicken or if it tastes like cake. Chicken fat in matzoh balls produces a nice light fluffy matzoh ball so I imagine it will work well in the cake. Keep us posted!!

Hey, Sharon. Don't give up on me. I still have a day job, so have to bake in fits and starts; plus, I keep getting sidetracked by things like sourdough bagels, my first batch of which are in the refrigerator for the night to be cooked in the morning. I did finally obtain some chicken backs, whose love handles would've been the envy of any male habitue' of The Rebel Lounge in Eufaula, Alabama. Each also had a very disreputable looking Parson's Nose, also a great source of fat. With some care, as fat can be treacherous to a knife wielding novice, I removed the love handles, the parson's noses and scraped off the fat along the spine. The rest of each back, I regret to say, will be wasted, but may eventually promote the biodegradation in the local landfill, I hope. The result was that from 12 backs weighing just over three pounds, I rendered at least six times the fat rendered from an entire six & 1/4 pound hen. (Of course, the hen yielded a lifetime supply of soup and chicken salad.) I'll try baking the cake tomorrow night and give you a report. (By the way, an old recipe I found in a family archive may negate your "yum, this cake tastes like chicken" concern; "a wine glass of fortified wine" was the secret ingredient.) I'll let you hear.

Remind me to wear blinders the next time I patronize The Rebel Lounge! So you took the fat from raw fatty chicken parts. Will you melt it down by the water method or just straight in a fry pan on low? Rather than tossing the rest of the backs, I would have made soup stock from it and taken the fat off the chilled soup stock. That's how I get almost all my fat, off of soup. I'm thinking the souped fat tastes more chicken-y and would make a bread or cake have a hint of chicken. Thoughts?

As for a non-baking use, I used some chicken fat this past Easter weekend to roast some potatoes. I added some salt and some Herbs De Provence and roasted for 25 minutes in a 500'F oven. Wonderful! (Even better if you can get your hands on some duck fat!)

I volunteer with a group which cooks dinners for the poor. Our group always makes chicken dinners. It's my job to prep the raw chicken which means I trim up legs and thighs. Which means I get to collect 8-10 pounds of raw chicken fat which I trim off the back end of the thigh portion. If I did not remove it, it would render off its liquid fat and overflow the shallow lipped roasting pans and start a fire in the ovens. I have a list of people who ask for 2-3 pounds of the raw fat in which they render and fry onions for seasoning in chopped liver, matza balls, knish filling and for just spreading on bread or toast with garlic salt. My mother taught me to enjoy this and she is 107 years old and she and her parents and sibs NEVER had cholesteral problems. They all ate horribly. I always have about 4 pints of the rendered and frozen schmaltz on hand and I give it out to anyone who wants some. I love it. I would never bake with it, except for knishes.

I render all the fat from all my soupstocks, freezing the fat until I need them. I have a stash of lamb, pork, chicken, beef and chicken/beef. I've recently been experimenting with gluten-free muffins with different fats. The one with the chicken/beef fat was the most tender. The other fats used in this experiment were coconut oil and olive oil. I believe there is definitely a place for schmaltz in baking, perhaps not in sweet baked goods but in savory goods. I also used some rendered fat from a braised meat dish complete with all the spices I threw in. I used that fat for gluten-free crackers giving them an exciting meaty-spicy flavor. What may now be considered bad food choices for us kept people healthy and warm for millenia.

Concerning the soup stock, if I had not already accumulated such a surfeit of broth from the allegedly fat hen, I would have been overwhelmed with guilt about throwing away the unused backs. If I had used the backs for stock, I would still have separated the fat before cooking, because it occurred to me after cooking the hen that the bones, marrow and lean meat might well have imparted some meaty or even gamey taste to the fat that I skimmed off for the cake. And, yes, I did use boiling (simmering) water, rather than rendering the fat directly on the fire, which I have seen elsewhere, because the result I have seen looked brownish and more suitable for rolls, maybe, than cake. If I ever feel inspired to attempt this again and a little more time on my hands, I may try rendering the fat in a double boiler as a compromise between the two other methods. Finally, while wearing blinders at The Rebel might help you restrain your natural inclination to hog-tie a country boy and schlep him home to momma, blinders would have the disadvantage of rendering you unable to see who had just put a fresh roll of quarters in the jukebox and was stumbling over to ask you to dance.

I just cooked the bagels (sans fat, of course; just a distraction), which I haven't had the nerve to taste yet, but I'm afraid that they look a little sad. I'll cook the cake tonight after the weather cools off. I'll let you hear how it turns out.

I'm afraid that I accepted a dinner invitation tonight and got home too late to begin baking a cake. I promise to be more responsible tomorrow night, and will make a full disclosure, even if checkered by failure, or whatever Teddy Roosevelt may have said.

Actually, the following is what he said in a speech to the Hamilton Club in Chicago on this very date, April 10, in 1899:

"Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat." http://www.bartleby.com/58/1.html

Of course, TR had more in mind than rendering chicken fat, but -- well, you get the idea. I intend to bake this chicken fat pound cake; no matter what the consequences. (Thank God for refrigeration, of course.)

No. It's not for baking, unless you call a potato kugel baking? It's for chopped liver, for matzo balls, for mashed potatoes when making knish fillingm it's for spreading on bread with garlic salt and toasting. It's not for cakes or cookies. Who wants a chicken flavored cookie or cake? Just thinking of a chicken flavored cake is not pleasant. I could imagine making a cake in a pan shapped like a chicken and making the cake taste like chicken but only if it were entered in a weird cake contest. It would probably win.

I do not put myself in that catagory of those who......."take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat." I made killer bagels today. I wish I could only take pictures and post them on TFL. The last time I tried posting a picture of a beautiful rye bread I made and photographed, it ended up standing on it's end.......

Kugel, matzoh balls, knishes...You are making me nostalgic for all those delicious foods! I did have gluten-free matzoh balls this past Passover and they were excellent! A chicken-shaped chicken cake in a chicken contest is very funny! I believe Buster may have something here, though. He is not making soup first which imparts the chicken flavor, I believe. Think about how lard is/was used for pie crusts and other flaky pastries. There is no hint of porkiness in those pie crusts because the fat was removed and melted down. The same may work for chicken fat. Buster will bake his chicken cake and cluck to us about it soon enough.

Thank you for the vote of encouragement, if not confidence, Sharonk. That Stuart guy is kind of intense. Most people just laughed at Galileo. I hope that Stuart will accept my recantation, if the cake does taste like chicken. Afterward, I guess I can mutter under my broth breath, "Eppure chioccia." Well, the cakes* are just now on the cooling racks. The receipt said to cool the cake thoroughly, so I may have to give you a post-breakfast report concerning taste and texture. I must say, however, that the batter tasted pretty good when I licked the bowl. They rose beautifully and smell pretty good. The top crusts are interesting for being somewhat pock marked, but that may say more about my cake making skills than about the shortening. I'll take some pictures and try to figure out how to share them.

*(A bit of advice for unsupervised male novice bakers: make sure that you own a tube pan before deciding to bake a pound cake at midnight. I wound up having to use two metal loaf pans lined with parchment paper.)

FYI, I have an unimpeachable witness, who is clearly unbiased. She is at least as skeptical as Stuart, and she shares his low appreciation of my bagels. Yesterday afternoon, I caught her hurling one of them in the general direction of a squirrel; am not sure whether she was trying to feed the squirrel or kill it for supper, but she missed and the squirrel ran away. If the bagel is still there at daybreak, I will accept Mother Nature's verdict.

I am waiting patiently for the judge's comments. So intrigued but it all! I just finished my last bit of schmaltz off of chicken/lamb soup on my own gluten-free pumpernickel bread. I hate when I run out!

Just to prove I'm not that "intense" if the cake turns out great, I'll stand on the corner of my block and cluck like a chicken....no cameras will be allowed.

I had schmaltz on garlic toast last night. As Homer Simpson would say, "MMMMM, schmaltz on garlic toast." Maybe he always said that about donuts, but, he meant, schmaltz on garlic toast.

Hey, I just make killer bagels. The best I ever made. I used diastic malt powder in the dough and non-diastic in the boil. Anyone want the recipe? It comes, with modifications, from a 1998 Saveur magazine recipe. It only makes 8 but that's fine for my needs.

Stuart, Where is your neighborhood so I can support you in your clucking? Schmaltz on garlic toast last night sounds like complete and total heaven. You're probably right about Homer Simpson, who was created by a bunch of Jewish guys. Your bagel recipe sounds good but I am gluten-free and bagels are on the way bottom of my experiment list.

Thank you both for your patience. I guess by now you had presumed that I had died of food poisoning. The verdict is in, and I am pleased to say that Florence and Galileo have been vindicated. Unfortunately, if I eat any more of this cake, I will blend right in at the Rebel. In fact, I celebrated by staying home today and wearing overalls. I just sent the following email to my old friend Florence's granddaughter, Brenda:

"Dear Brenda: "Did Florence ever tell you how she dealt with the scarcity of butter during the Depression and during the rationing of World War II? She would boil a chicken and use the chicken fat in place of butter called for by the recipe. I am also known as 'Buster 1948' on a blog called the Fresh Loaf. You may pick up the trail of my effort to follow in your grandmother's chicken tracks at http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/28173/chicken-fat-baking#comment-252289 -- scroll down to 'Chicken Fat Cakes' and the follow up comments."I never got Florence's actual recipe, so I used a combination of one given me by former wife, Judy, whose wonderful cakes were only one of her manifold good qualities, and one from the 1936 Clayton (Ala.) Cook Book. "The resulting cakes were, as Florence had promised, very light and tasty. (Pound cakes are usually baked in a single tube pan, but I discovered too late that I didn't own one; hence, the two loaf pans.) I omitted 2 of the 8 ounces of sour cream and the vanilla, for which I substituted 2 ounces of Kahlua, rather than the glass of sherry called for in the 1935 Clayton Cookbook, simply because we didn't have any fortified wine. I used two 7/8ths cups of high quality chicken lard, which I rendered myself from the love handles and parson's noses of 12 chicken backs, in place of the usual pound (2 cups, which is = two sticks) of butter. I doubt I'll do this again, but it had been on my bucket list ever since Florence told me about it 15 or more years ago, and it seemed more doable and spiritual than getting rich at this stage in my life. (If I do a reprise, I will buy some sherry, as the Kahlua was a little too heavy, but that is a minor self-criticism.) "My beautiful assistant depicted below is Henrietta Boggs, a near contemporary of Florence, having been born May 7, 1918. Although their lives had diverged in significant ways (e.g., H. always wanted to see over the next hill and was even involved in a revolution in 1948 in Central America, while Florence stayed home and tended her 'garden', as she once referred to her family), Henrietta and Florence became friends through me around the year 2000. Florence and I never tried making this cake together, but she was with us in our hearts and minds night before last. "Concerning Henrietta, I believe that you will find the following of interest, even though she won't be seen cooking in the video: http://vimeo.com/57149780 . Let me know if you have a problem opening it." [End of email.] So, my dear Sharon and my unintense Stuart, if I'm lying, I'm dying. It really is a good cake, though probably not nearly so delicious as the ones Florence would have made and served to her little "garden". And, Stuart, I'll let you off the hook about the clucking thing, if you will promise to try baking a chicken fat cake of your own one day. I really will do what I can to figure out how to upload the pictures for y'all. Best regards, Buster

Well, I hope that you can see these. Unfortunately, I cannot figure out how to rotate these. BTW, that actually is some reddish-brown discoloration in the lower third of the cross-section, which I suspect may have come from the Kahlua, but maybe one of you more experienced bakers can offer a better explanation. I also wondered, given the closer grain near the bottom, whether I may have put this one in the oven before it was quite hot enough. I really cannot see how either of these defects can reasonably be attributed to type fat used. However, I will again defer to any better qualified baker's diagnosis.

Henrietta claims that she was merely trying to feed the squirrel, rather than kill it, but the ungrateful creature scampered away. However that may be, the bagel was gone the next morning, so some vermin with a more cultivated palate must have sniffed it out during the night. I'll take that as a sign that Mother Nature wants me to give bagels another chance to respond to me; so, if you would, please, Stuart, let me have your bagel recipe and your "process", as Coach Saban would call it. Thank you.

Thanks for your most excellent and humorous writing! I like the stories about Henrietta and Florence. I'm so glad you had success with your pound cake! Even though the pictures are sideways I can see a beautiful crumb and texture. I have long had gluten-free, dairy-free, egg-free pound cake on my experiment list and now know, because of your chicken fat experiments, that chicken will work as a sub for butter. I will think on collecting chicken fat and using the double boiler to render it. If it works, that may be the most efficient method.

I have never heard of pound cake with sherry in it! Can you taste the alcoholicness of the Kahlua? I know it bakes out but is there a hint of it left?

Hey, Sharon. I've been away for a few sessions. Just realized that I failed to answer your question concerning taste of Kahlua in the pound cake. There was a taste present which I attribute to the Kahlua, but admit that I could have made a better choice. In fact, my favorite former wife's pound cakes flavored with vanilla extract tasted better. My resort to the 1935 Clayton Cook Book was partly nostalgic. I have recently learned that the author of that pound cake recipe, who was the grandmother of some childhood friends, was a teetotaler, so her instruction to "add 1 wine glass wine" is more cryptic than ambiguous, and therefore more amenable to the cook's imagination than to rational construction. My theory, based on knowledge of Clayton ladies of that era who were not teetotalers, is that they would have inferred that she meant a traditional sherry glass, which I eyeballed as being 2 ounces, of some fortified wine, probably sherry. I would think would have tasted better than the Kahlua.

PS: If you want to taste the best cake on earth, which was born in Clayton, the Lane Cake, which has a wonderful filling of pecans, coconut and raisins, and is flavored with Bourbon whiskey. Recipes, like languages, tend to evolve, especially since even Oprah has "discovered" Lane Cake, and it may eventually go the way of fried green tomatoes, which have become unrecognizable since Fannie Flagg and Hollywood got hold of them. However, because you are an especially nice lady, I will tell you two secrets, which you should remember no matter how much you may modify the original Lane Cake recipe: (1) don't overdo the Bourbon, the idea is to flavor the cake, not get your children drunk (the same being true of egg nog); and (2) "filling" refers to material used to fill the space between the layers of the cake, not something used to prettify the outside of the cake, SO fill the interior spaces with the filling, and then seal the top and sides of the filled cake with an old fashioned boiled white icing, so that it is airtight, then let it sit 24 to 48 hours before serving it. That way, the flavor will have permeated the whole cake and won't have been wasted on the desert air; speaking of which, if the cake starts to dry out before you can finish it, just cut an apple and set it inside the cake box overnight. It will add moisture to the cake without materially altering its flavor. Even if it did, it would be un-American to object to a little apple taste. See, but don't completely trust, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lane_cake

to TFL. Is it possible to turn them in your camera before downloading them to your computer?

I do enjoy your posts! The chicken skins can be cut into strips and fried chrispy, they are full of great vitamins. I use chicken fat up as soon as I have it so I've never had enough to use in baking. I would think it would act more like oil in a recipe than solid butter or shortening as the melting temperature is so low.

Good morning, Mini! "Wake up and greet the rosy fingered dawn!" (Credit James Thurber.) As indicated in my reply to Stu, I have to go and grapple with the grim reality of consciousness in a little while, so will be brief. Thank you for your kind remarks and for your suggestion about the chicken skins. You have inspired a further idea, which is to try baking some chicken skin cracklin' bread. I'll bet that it will be very good, but it will have to wait until I have seen what I can do with Stu's bagel instructions.

Description: In the year 2013 I read about diastic malt powder and non-diastic malt powder and how to use these in bagel making. Now I can produce nice crunchy crusted bagels with soft chewy interiors. I make plain, sesame topped and poppy seed topped and onion bagels. I egg wash them for a nice sheen and the wash allows the toppings to adhere.

1 1/2 cups spring water, warmed to 105-degrees

1 1/2 teaspoons active dry yeast

1 Teaspoon diastic malt powder

1 teaspoons Vital wheat gluten

4 cups bread flour

2 1/2 tsp kosher salt

FOR THE BOIL, a large pot able to hold 4 boiling bagels comfortably and deep enough to flip without hitting bottom. About a gal. of water.

2 tablespoon white sugar

4 tablespoon non-diastic malt powder

FOR THE TOPPINGS whole egg mixed with a little water for egg wash, poppy seeds, sesame seeds and dry onion flakes reconstituted with water, drained and placed on a dish

FOR THE RETARDED COLD RISE IN THE REFRIGERATOR

1 jelly roll pan 17.25 X 11.5 X 1 inches (may use parchment paper or non stick aluminum foil on pan, I think it makes removing the cold bagels at the time of boiling, easier than not using) Plastic wrap to cover bagels as they rise

Instructions: This recipe requires a 9 hour slow cold rise in a refrigerator, so, plan accordingly. Place 1 1/2 cups spring water in Pyrex measuring cup and bring to 105-degrees. Pour into bowl of a powerful standing mixer with the pigtail dough mixer in place. I have a 6 quart Kitchen Aid Professional stand mixer. Sprinkle the yeast into the water. Let it sit. Into another bowl measure 4 cups bread flour and 1 tsp vital wheat gluten, the Kosher salt and the 1 tsp diastatic malt powder. Using a whisk, stir this dry mixture. When you see the yeast has started to foam turn on the mixer to stir setting and add the flour mixture one cup at a time. When all the dry ingredients are wetted increase speed to 2. Knead for 10 minutes. Remove dough from bowl. It should be a nice dough and not adhere to your hand or to a wooden board. Knead it into a ball then pat it into a thick disk. Cover with plastic wrap or place into plastic bag for 5 minutes. Remove from bag or uncover and using a long knife, mark the dough into half. Then into quarters and then into 8th' s. Recover. If you are using plastic wrap you can mark the dough thru the plastic. Cut off 1/8th of the dough and cover the remaining dough. Flatten the 4 ounce piece of dough and elongate it into about a 4-5 inch segment and flatten it slightly by patting it. Then gather it up from along a long edge and using your finger tips press it into the dough and keep rolling it up and sealing it. Then when all rolled up, using the heel of your hand seal it up finally. Then place one hand atop the other and both hands in the center of the log of dough and roll it out into an 11 inch rope. Wet the three fingers of your right hands with water from the faucet and wet the right end three inches of the rope. Now wrap the rope around your hand with the ends overlapping in your palm and then rub the overlapping ends on the table top and form a seal. Place this bagel onto the jelly roll pan and cover it. Do the same with the remainder of the dough. You should have 8 equal size 4 ounce bagels. I have a kitchen scale and measure 4 ounces. Cover the bagels well and place in the refrigerator for 9 hours. Remove and leave at room temp. for 1 hour. Place your oven stone/pizza stone on a rack in the mid to upper oven. Turn the oven on to 450. Allow the stone to preheat for the hour. Place the water in the pot and add the non-diastic malt powder and the sugar and bring to a boil. Place the wet onion flakes into a dish. Have your sesame seeds and poppy seeds ready and your egg wash and brush ready. Have a skimmer at the ready as well. Allow the pizza stone to heat up to the oven temp for 45 min. to a hour. This is when you do the boiling of the bagels. When the water is boiling place 3-4 bagels into the boiling water and boil for 30 seconds then flip over for 30 seconds then remove to a rack set over a towel. When all the bagels have been boiled paint with the egg wash. Sprinkle the seeds onto those bagels you want seeded. Pick up the ones you want dipped into the wet onion flakes and dip them. If the onion flakes don't adhere just pick the onions up and place them onto the bagel. These bagels will need an extra 5-10 minutes of baking because of the water in the onions. My pizza peel is the size of my pizza stone. I lay a piece of parchment paper on it and I place the boiled onion covered and seeded bagels onto the parchment. When all the bagels are finished being treated I slide them onto the hot stone and allow the oven temp. to recover to the 450 mark and then I turn the temp down to 425 and bake them for 20 minutes or until they are golden brown. The ones with the onions take an additional 5-10 minutes. Then remove them to a rack to cool and enjoy. Serves: 8 Serving Size: 4 ounce bagel Yields: 8 Prep Time: 30 min. Idle Time: 9 hours Cook Time: 30 min Total Time: all day

Hola, Stu! Thank you for the detailed bagel information. I have copied it all to my hard drive and will apply myself to it as soon as I can. I wound up composting those from my debut, and after they had sat around for a few days, a couple of them put up a pretty good fight when I tried to break them in two to enhance their deterioration in the compost pile. I hope that the earth worms have stronger jaws than I do. I will let you know how things go using your instructions. I hope you have a good day. Unfortunately, I'll be having what promises to be a humorless day in court; at least, I hope so. About 30 years ago I heard that "the problem with judicial humor is that it is usually neither judicial nor humorous."

Well, in that pretty jacket, I thought that you might be the Little Red Hen, who raised wheat and baked it in the Russian fairy tale. You may get a kick out of Malvina Reynolds' version, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdrlT8FIATM .

No. I'm afraid that I'll always be the man in the black suit, not the black robe nor, I hope, the black and white stripes.

Still playing with the recipe. When I first laid everything out for the recipe a week ago, it was too much for my large bowl and just the two of us so I divided the recipe into thirds, meaning I weighed and put the cooked potato and potato water into freezer containers and saved them for easy warming in the microwave. Works very well. So yesterday I thawed one portion, added milk to warm and mixed up the dough. Came together very nicely, more so than the first time, I also added dry whole caraway seeds. Dough third makes about 12 rolls. I cut off a good size chunk of the dough (half?) before overnight retarding so I could make egg sandwiches "to go" this morning. I shaped and flattened them out, let them rise, scored & baked them before supper. One vanished sometime in the night. (funny, can't remembering adding feet) Guess they looked/smelled too good.

Got the rest of the dough to play with sometime today. Plan on rolling out into sticks or braids or... something and dropping into hot soda water to pretzel their outsides. I can only make about 6 but, hey, what can I say? I like 'em fresh! Spoiled rotten I am, I am.

Like the little red hen who planted the wheat, I made my bread with time to eat. I think I vaguely remember teaching some camp songs to the same tune. Isn't Malvina Reynolds the "boxes full of ticky tacky" lady? "...and they all looked just the same." A good reason for a variety of rolls. (and lots of posts)

Potato bread tastes like a better version of white bread. If eggs and butter are added it starts heading in the direction of brioche. It is one of the simplest ways to improve a basic white wheat bread.

Salt rising bread is a wonderful bread, which almost stings the roof of your mouth, but it's a good sort of sting. There are two basic starters, one made from coarse water ground corn meal and the other (with which I have had more success) from sliced uncooked "new" or red potatoes. That is why I asked about the taste of your potato rolls. I am supposed to make some sandwich bread this weekend, so will try your idea, including eggs and milk. You may be interested in the video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIWHcBt5YMc . The lady named Susan Brown is the real expert and a friend of our blog host, Floyd.

Are you feeling violent, or are you just a provocateur? All is well. It turned out to be just a "shave and a haircut" type of appearance, and he didn't try out any new jokes on us. It's always a good sign when there's not a one man band next to his bench. :)

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